


Broken Promises

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Lyoray [2]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Broken Promises, Death, Established Relationship, Fear, Grief/Mourning, Iced Shell, Loss, Love, M/M, Promises, Sacrifice, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 13:18:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16765921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: Come back to me. Remember that your life, this heart, is not only yours anymore. Promise me? Promise me that you won’t throw it away…I promise…Gray had promised, and Lyon had let him go knowing that there was no way to stop him from fighting this battle.





	Broken Promises

_Come back to me. Remember that your life, this heart, is not only yours anymore. Promise me? Promise me that you won’t throw it away…_

_I promise…_

****

Even as he had whispered the words, lips close to Gray’s ear, he had known that it wasn’t something that either of them could promise and that it wasn’t fair to ask his partner. Not now. Not when they were at war, fighting to protect everything and everyone they held dear, doing everything in their power to gain a victory, even if it meant risking life and limb. Both had already come uncomfortably close to death, and he knew that Gray feared losing him, just as much, if not more than he feared to lose the other man. It was a fear made a thousand times worse by the fact that he knew Gray, better than he knew himself sometimes, and he knew just how far his partner was willing to go for Fairy Tail, for his friends…his family, and that as they were currently in the midst of everything, caught up in the worst of the chaos, that was precisely where his fiancé was going to be.

There was a large part of him that just wanted to grab Gray and flee, to get them both far away from this conflict and hide them both behind their ice. To keep them safe from the war, from the past, and from anything that might threaten to take Gray away from him, but he knew that Gray would fight him every inch of the way. And that even if he won the argument and found the words to convince Gray to come with him, it would fester, and that he would never be forgiven if anything happened to the rest of their friends.

That was why he had whispered those words. Why he had asked for a promise that he knew wasn’t fair, hoping that it would at least make Gray pause and think about what he was doing, and what he was risking, if…when he was on the brink of doing something reckless.

Something that he knew was only a matter of time.

His heart still raced, feeling as though it might burst out of his chest when he thought back to what had happened on Galuna Island, and how close Gray had come to casting Iced Shell, willing to throw everything away to undo his mistake. To atone. To protect his friends. They hadn’t been romantically involved back then, hell, they had been enemies, at least on his part, but it still gave him pause whenever he contemplated the fact that he had come so close to losing the other Ice mage before he even knew just how much he meant to him. And so, he had been selfish, whispering those words, and fixing Gray with pleading eyes as he allowed his desperation to seep into his voice, abandoning all pretext of confidence or distance in the hopes of breaking through to Gray.

In his defence, Gray had caved quickly to his words, whispering the promise readily enough as a blush spread across his cheeks at Lyon’s reminder that he wasn’t alone anymore. That his heart, and life, belonged to and with Lyon. A point that Lyon had tried to emphasise, holding Gray’s gaze, as he ducked his head to brush his lips against the simple, silver band that marked their commitment, their hopes… their future.

*

It had been that promise, and how easily it had been given. Along with the way that Gray had hugged him, clinging to him as they said their farewells and the desperate, lingering kiss that they had shared just before he had to leave, that had allowed him to let Gray go. To draw back from the hug, his arms already aching and empty, and let Gray step away from him with a determined expression on his face. It had been the only way he had been able to contain himself as Gray had left Hargeon, walking away from the town without him by his side. Although as he had stood there and watched Gray walking away from him, leaving him behind with nothing but that promise, his magic had betrayed his real feelings, the air around him growing colder and colder as ice crept along the ground. Following Gray, reaching for him as though he could still keep him there with him, and it had been a struggle to rein it in and to convince himself to go through with this. When the ice had finally retreated, his magic subsiding beneath his skin, he had looked up to find that Gray was already out of sight and that all he had was those precious words.

_Remember your promise, and come back to me…_

****

It had been three days since he had let Gray walk away from him. Three days since they had made that promise and the fear was always there in the back of his mind. The wish that he could have stopped Gray from going, or at least have gone with him. However, there was plenty to do, the war keeping him on his toes, and so he had forced himself to focus, to trust in that promise – to fight so that Gray had someone to come back to, and for a time he had…not forgotten, but lost himself in the chaos.

Then it had all come crashing down on him.

Lyon had always thought that it was an exaggeration when people said that they could feel it when something was wrong with their loved ones, especially when they claimed to ‘just know’ and he had always dismissed it. It was a nice notion, a romantic one, but one that seemed a little too farfetched. However, when he stumbled in the midst of a battle, pausing in the middle of casting a spell, his eyes growing blank and distant as it felt as though part of him had just been ripped away. It was crawling unease that slipped under his skin and burrowed its way inside, and a chill that had nothing to do with the magic dancing across his skin, and deep down he realised that he knew what it meant.

_Gray…_

That momentary distraction had very nearly cost him his life, as he’d come back to himself to find himself falling, his magic responding a split second too slow and he knew that he owned Sherry a debt for her timely intervention. However, at that moment he hadn’t been able of focus on that, deaf to her worried questions and blind to the concern as she studied him, unable to focus on anything apart from the strange void that seemed to have opened up in his chest.

The feeling had only grown, spreading through him with each shaky breath, and he hadn’t even waited to make sure that everything was over or that their enemies had been properly rounded up. Trusting that his guildmates and the others who had fought alongside them would be able to handle that and brushing aside his guild’s frantic queries as he all but bolted from the battlefield with nothing more than a muttered apology.

_Gray…Gray…Gray…_

His fiancé’s name had become a mantra in his mind, a desperate ploy to fill the void, to stop himself from thinking the worst. It didn’t work.

Usually, he would have been able to reach out and contact Grau through the communication lacrimas that all guilds now carried, the only way they had been able to coordinate their efforts, but that had been one of the first things that had been knocked out when the fighting had started in earnest. There hadn’t been time to fix it, and they hadn’t known how to get around it. Besides, right now that wouldn’t be enough, even if it would have given him a swift answer to the question that he wasn’t ready to voice. He needed to see Gray with his own two eyes, to hold him in his arms once more, to kiss him. Anything to fill this terrifying, aching void.

_Please, let me be imagining things…_

****

Despite his best efforts it still took him over a day to reach Magnolia. Even then, he had only crossed the distance so quickly because he had managed to salvage a relatively intact Magic Car that had been abandoned on the side of the road by the civilians who had fled before the fighting had spread out beyond the borders of Hargeon and neighbouring towns. He’d pushed himself to the limit, every fibre of his being focused on getting to Magnolia and finding Gray, and by the time he finally reached his destination he had been weak and staggering, barely a spark of magic left to his name as he had refused to rest at all during the journey. And throughout it all the strange, empty feeling his chest had only continued to grow, fanning the flames of his panic, and leaving him even more desperate for answers.

_Gray, you promised me…_

_You promised._

Throughout the journey he had alternated between desperately denying that anything could have happened, trying to convince himself that he was imagining things, to begging Gray to be all right. Pleading with him to have kept his promise beneath his breath, while skirting the terrifying thought that it might already be too late. That he might be too late.

His first view of Magnolia had done nothing to comfort him, quelling what little hope he had been trying to cling to. He had known this town, right down to its twists and turns after long hours spent wandering and exploring with Gray, wanting to learn every inch of the place that his partner called home, and making memories every step of the way. Yet now, as he looked up at it, it was virtually unrecognisable. The war had changed Fiore completely very the first sallies, but it had clearly hit here the hardest. And as he cautiously headed into the city, forced to abandon the Magic car on the outskirts after he’d found the road blocked, unwilling to waste time clearing it, he found it increasingly hard to imagine that people had survived this kind of devastation. That his fiancé had survived the destruction.

_Gray, please…_

However, as he had ventured further and further into Magnolia, he was proved wrong as he stumbled upon signs of life. There were small tents dotted here and there amongst the rubble, a poor substitute for the homes that had been destroyed, but proof that people had survived and that they weren’t leaving. In between the little clusters of habitation, teams of workers, mages and civilians alike were already beginning to try and clear some of the rubble, and it was only when he had tentatively approached one of those teams that he discovered that it was all over. That the war had been brought to an end, before he’d even fled Hargeon, his heart leaping into his throat when the group told him that there had been a huge, devastating battle near the Cathedral and that Fairy Tail had borne the brunt of it, suffering enormous losses.

‘ _Leave them be’,_ they had told him when he had started to turn away, his need for answers growing more urgent by the second and he had to fight the urge to snap at them. He understood that they were trying to help. That in their own way they were trying to protect Fairy Tail, but there was no way he could wait, and so he muttered a vague response before hurrying away before they could stop him. There was no way he could stay away, even if he understood their reasons because he knew without a doubt that if there had been a large battle, then a certain Ice mage would have been in the centre of it.

_Gray, please…_

*

As Lyon drew closer to Kardia Cathedral, the damage that the buildings had suffered grew worse and more than once he had to find a different path to get through some of the rubble, and with each step he took, his dread grew.

In the end, he hadn’t needed anyone to tell him the news. He’d been able to see the truth for himself as he finally cleared the ruined streets and stepped into the square where Kardia Cathedral stood – the same square where he had kissed Gray for the first time, to find that the entire building glistening in the early morning sun, ice encasing nearly every inch of the Cathedral.

It was a beautiful sight.

A terrible, beautiful sight. One that stole his breath away, the void in his chest splitting open and leaving him unable to breathe as he took a staggering step forward, his legs threatening to give way beneath him as he reached out towards the ice with trembling fingers. He knew this magic. He knew it better than he wanted to, and it was a magic that he had hoped never to see again. A magic that Gray had promised not only him, but his friends that he would never use again, and it was that thought, and the spark of fury that followed that gave him the strength to stagger forward until he reached the ice. He was vaguely aware of people reaching for him, calling his name, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognised them, flinching away at the sight of familiar guild mark. Realising that they were trying to talk to him, no doubt trying to tell him what happened…to apologise…but he didn’t want to hear. No, he couldn’t hear it, because if he did, it would mean confronting the sight in front of him. It would mean accepting the reality that was looming in front of him.

By the time he took the last unsteady step towards the ice, his cheeks were damp with tears that he hadn’t even realised were falling, and his hand trembled violently as he reached out to brush his fingers over the ice. It was cold enough to burn his fingers, and yet at the same time, it seemed to him as though it was letting off a warm sensation, one that stretched out towards him as though trying to wrap it up in its embrace and with a choked sob he fell against it. The anger that had been churning just beneath the denials and numbness disappeared as he pressed against it, chasing that warm sensation, making a horrible, broken noise as he realised that it was Gray. That he could still feel his fiancé in the ice. He had never really been able to understand why Gray had been so protective of Ur’s ice, or why he had mourned when it had flowed away into the sea, but now as he rested his cheek against the glistening surface, he understood.

“You promised…y-you promised,” he whispered, his voice cracking and then breaking completely as he lost the battle to remain upright, his legs caving beneath him. And as he slid down to the ground against the ice, against Gray…he shattered, splintering like ice as great, wrenching sobs tore through him and he twisted, turning to claw at the ice that was no longer beautiful, but terrible and cruel. Desperately he scrabbled at it, not caring as he tore his nails and his skin split, droplets of blood standing out starkly against the ice, knowing deep down that it was too late. That Gray was gone, and the sobs rose and twisted in his chest, becoming a fractured wail as the promises they had made broke beneath his hands.

_You promised._


End file.
